CHAPTER 16

Alone Together

When practicing new techniques, there should be no expectations, no thoughts of the future. The mind and body simply need repetition, present practice without tethering to any concept.

Passage Eight, Twenty-Ninth Precept of the Combat Codes

Cego stood across the Circle from Novor Malynski.

He could remember when he’d first come to the Lyceum, how Level Six students had seemed like gods; fully grown Grievar, having spent a near decade training at the best combat school in the nation, on the verge of testing for their Knighthood. The Whelps had gawked at the red second skins in the halls, clung to every word and technique a Level Sixer might offer.

But now, staring across the Circle at Novor, Cego simply saw another opponent. Another Grievar with vulnerabilities to expose, another body with bones to break and arteries to constrict.

They stood in auralite, yet Cego didn’t feel the crowd pull bestowed by the swirling blue spectrals. The audience was bigger than he’d ever seen before for a challenge match. Cego had waited on the sidelines with his team and watched the seating section swell with the entire student body and faculty.

As Callen Albright had ordered, the feeds had run the team’s prerecorded messages denouncing the Flux. Cego had cringed watching himself up there, telling lies to support Governance propaganda.

Though he hated Silas for everything he’d done, Cego didn’t care about destroying the Flux. He didn’t support the rebellion or the established system. He wanted to be left alone, no longer used by one side or the other. He wanted to be with his friends, the only true family he had in this world.

Cego quickly glanced to his side, seeing Sol square off against a lanky Desovian transfer student named Marok Timit. He hoped Sol would be able to fend him off. Though he knew she was more than able to hold her own, Cego felt worry blossoming in him, a need to protect Solara Halberd.

To his other side, Knees was matched with a thick Myrkonian, one of the Northmen from the previous year that had decided to stay and test for Knighthood. Knees nodded at Cego from across the grounds. He saw the boy he’d known for so long, the scarred kid who had run sloth carries with him in the slave yards.

Here, they were up against the best in the Lyceum. Cego couldn’t help but feel pride for his friends, Dozer and Abel and Brynn up on the sidelines, shouting in support.

Novor pounded his chest and snarled across the ring at Cego. “Don’t think I believe that shit they showed up on the feeds. I know who you are, and I’ll make you pay for that.”

Cego stared back at the red-clad Grievar. He had no idea who Cego was.

Crimson lightning flashed behind his opponent. Cego blinked and saw black skies and frozen waters. Thunder tremored above, and he tasted a strange, sulfurous air on his tongue.

He stood in the familiar desolate landscape that he went to every time he stepped within the onyx in the catacombs, a place that had become as much a home to him over the past month as the Lyceum.

He still saw Novor in front of him in the Circle, and yet he also saw the Guardian. The void of the creature’s face bled tendrils of blacklight that pulled Cego toward it as the sounding bell rang out.

Cego shook his head, trying to dispel the illusion and bring himself back to the challenge grounds.

“Not now,” he murmured.

He knew what would happen if he let the darkness take him, if he let himself escape to that place. Cego breathed deeply and planted his feet against the soft canvas. He let the bluelight seep into his skin and embraced the crowd’s cheers.

Novor stopped a moment, puzzled at Cego’s strange behavior, but the lull did not last.

The Level Sixer spun into a long-range side kick. Cego angled his body to avoid the attack and raised his hands to block the switch kick that followed. He countered with a swift foot sweep that put Novor’s back on the canvas.

Novor popped up and growled as he advanced again. He feigned a high jab and shot low for the leg, but Cego was ready with a sprawl and a counter knee that sent Novor stumbling backward.

The red-clad fighter didn’t let up; he launched a succession of strikes that Cego bobbed and weaved around. Cego ducked a roundhouse and sprang forward for an inside trip, catching Novor off guard and bringing him back to the ground.

The Level Sixer was skilled, though; he caught Cego’s elbow on the way down, threatening to expose his back. Cego quickly disengaged to avoid the trap, and Novor again returned to his feet.

Still, the Grievar didn’t give Cego a moment to recover. Novor closed the distance and threw a low kick to the calf and a stinging right hand down the middle. Cego turned his chin with the punch, negating the impact, but Novor’s fist mashed his lip into his teeth.

“Go back to where you came from, traitor,” Novor spat. “We don’t want you here.”

Go back to where you came from.

Cego blinked and it was the Guardian in front of him again, the darkness of the island its backdrop. Crimson lightning flashed across the sky, and the black sand beach shuddered with the thunder.

Cego tasted the blood in his mouth and he snarled, launching himself at the Guardian.

He knew he had to go on the offensive or the creature would destroy him. It always did.

He threw a volley of strikes, expecting the Guardian to parry all of them easily, but to his surprise, a cross broke through its defenses and blasted the beast in the face.

He blinked again and it was Novor on the canvas, blood streaming from his broken nose.

Cego’s lips curled into a smile.

Was this the best the Lyceum had to offer? A Level Sixer, nearly ready to enter the premier fighting force in the world, moving so sluggishly? Cego felt a sudden contempt for his opponent.

He waved his hand dismissively to let Novor stand, who did so on shaky knees. Words came from Cego’s mouth like bile. “You don’t deserve to be here. You don’t belong in this Circle with me.”

Novor’s face flushed red like his second skin.

This time, the Level Sixer advanced with deliberate aggression, circling Cego and peppering him with long-range punches and kicks. Novor had the reach advantage and rightfully sought to utilize it.

But Novor’s lanky limbs didn’t matter. Nor did the technique he’d spent his life honing. Cego watched his opponent move listlessly, as if Novor were pushing through some viscosity in the air with each strike. Every feint, hip twist, shuffle step, or counter, Cego saw before it came.

He played with Novor, letting him tire with his ceaseless attack. Even though Cego had ample opportunity to counter, he didn’t take it. He wanted to humiliate Novor, show the crowd that he didn’t belong in this Circle with Cego.

Novor breathed heavily as he moved in at Cego again, trying to corner him with sluggish jabs.

Cego smiled as he watched Novor’s frustration slowly turn to fear. The Grievar finally saw how hopeless his efforts were. He’d realized he was the prey, the rodent ready to be ripped apart by the circling raptor.

Cego savored the fear. He let it fuel him.

Not only would he finish Novor with one shot, he’d finish him for good. He’d show the crowd what real power looked like, how death could be dealt by his hand.

Novor closed the distance again, not comprehending he was moving toward his demise.

Cego weaved his head away from a cross and quick-stepped in. He shot his hand out and caught the Level Sixer by the throat. He met Novor’s eyes as he lifted his leg in a high arc and brought it back the other way to sweep his opponent to the ground.

Osoto gari.

Cego kept his clenched grip on the stunned boy’s throat, pressing him to the canvas. He slid his knee onto Novor’s belly and raised his free hand to finish the job.

Cego saw the void of the Guardian’s face staring up at him, empty and mocking. After getting torn apart by the apparition so many times, he could finally find his revenge.

Maintaining his grasp on the creature’s throat, Cego slammed a strike through its face. He struck it again and felt the satisfying crunch beneath his fist. He followed with a cutting elbow and heard the creature moan. He reared up for another blow.

Cego caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye: Sol in the Circle beside him, matching her opponent strike for strike, dancing in and out of range. Her long braid whipped around with her movements, a fluid whirlwind of violence and beauty all at once.

Cego looked down and saw Novor beneath him again. The Level Sixer’s face was a mask of blood.

Cego’s fist trembled; he wanted to bring it down again. The darkness pressed up against him like flames on a sealed door, but Cego stayed his hand. He couldn’t let Sol see him like this again, like years before when she’d stared down at him in shock after he’d nearly killed Gryfin Thurgood.

Cego couldn’t let Murray’s death be for nothing. He’d be no different from Silas if he let the energy control him, if he let the darkness take him.

He breathed deeply, exhaled, and the blacklight fled, returned to that desolate void that Cego knew was both outside and within.

A deep weariness replaced the energy. Cego suddenly carried the last month, decades of training compressed within the onyx. He felt the weight of Murray’s and Joba’s deaths, the burden of the lives the Strangler had taken.

Novor recognized the change in Cego, his slumped posture. The Level Sixer switched his hips, pushed Cego off him, and returned to his feet.

“Should have taken your chance while you had it.” Novor wiped the blood from his face and charged.

Cego caught an incoming kick, fired a return cross to Novor’s chest, blocked a hook.

He stuffed a takedown as Novor tried to shoot low, and fired a counter knee that lacked any power. Novor was the one to smile now, sensing something was wrong, smelling blood. The Level Sixer came forward with a series of jabs; Cego dodged two but caught the third on the nose.

Novor stayed on him and finally hit the takedown he’d been looking for. Cego tried to sprawl, but the boy drove forward and planted him firmly against the canvas.

Cego’s head snapped back as Novor’s fist rattled it.

Though Cego knew he should move, though he sensed the stomp coming for his skull, he did nothing. He was too weary, the energy entirely fled from his body.

Novor’s foot blasted through and the lights went out.

“I don’t want to,” Sam complained, kicking a seashell lodged in the surf.

“You need to, Sam,” Cego told his little brother. He dusted some of the black sand off the boy’s mop of hair as they walked along the shore. “Farmer will be cross if you don’t, not to mention Silas.”

“But…” A little pout crossed Sam’s freckled face, stretching the gash on his lip. “He already beat me up yesterday. There’s nothing I can do against him.”

Cego sighed as he looked out at the cerulean waters beside them, the Path shimmering to the distant horizon. “I understand.”

Their little dog, Arry, appeared at Sam’s side, licking the boy’s sun-kissed feet.

“You’re better than me, though,” Sam said as he knelt to pat Arry. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like… to always be losing to you two.”

His little brother had a good point. Since they’d begun their training on the island under Farmer’s tutelage, things had always been the same. Silas was the strongest, a near replica of the old master’s flawless technique. Not to mention the eldest brother had a penchant for violence; Cego could see it in Silas’s grin when he scored a painful strike on one of them.

Cego had always been close to Silas’s skill but could never quite catch him. He had the technique, he could see his brother’s movements as they came, and yet he was powerless to stop them.

And Sam had always been the weakest. It’s not that his little brother didn’t try—the boy was as tenacious as they came, and he could fight with the ferocity of a cornered mongoose, but he simply was too weak, too slow, without any tactical advantages. Cego could most often pick Sam apart, and Silas would toy with the littlest brother.

“I do understand,” Cego said. “Silas beats me too. Every time. I’ve barely ever grazed him with a strike and haven’t come close with any sort of submission.”

Sam sniffed as the sea breeze ruffled his hair and they continued down the beach. “So, what’s the point of either of us fighting him, over and over, getting beat up every time?”

“Don’t you see, Sam?” Cego said. “Even though we’re losing, we’re still gaining. We’re learning new skills, figuring out a way to get to him eventually.”

The brothers turned their heads skyward as a flock of sigil sparrows took to the air in defense of their nest. A raptor wafted far overhead on a warm current.

“Well, at least we have a break today until you need to fight him,” Cego said as he turned from the beach onto the path toward the ironwood forest. Arry broke away and scurried back along the shore toward Farmer’s compound.

“You coming?” Cego turned back to his brother.

Sam’s eyes lit up as he seemed to forget Silas altogether for a moment. He followed Cego. “Think they’re still up there?”

“They should be,” Cego said as they pushed aside the undergrowth. “Though it’s the wilds; anything could have happened. A raptor or even one of the big sand lizards could have gotten to them.”

“I think they’ll be okay,” Sam said as they ducked under a low branch and emerged into a clearing. Giant ironwood trees encircled them, dark trunks towering toward the sky.

The two boys padded on top of the fallen needles across the grove until they reached the base of the largest tree. The ancient ironwood was visible even from Farmer’s compound, its green canopy rising above the rest of the forest.

A dent cut into one side of the gnarled tree, as if someone had taken an axe to it, but Cego and Sam used the groove as a foothold to begin climbing. The two brothers pulled themselves onto one of the thick branches of the lower canopy, thirty feet off the ground.

“I can’t see—” Sam started, but Cego held a finger to his mouth to quiet the boy.

He pointed across the trunk to a tangle of branches where a pile of leaves and sticks was laid out.

At first, there was silence and the slow sway of the tree boughs with the island wind. And then a small form slowly peeked out from the edge of the pile. A furry black head with yellow eyes came into view and a tiny feline leapt to the branch.

“They’re still here!” Sam whispered, his eyes alight.

The brothers watched as another minuscule cat, this one with a grey coat, crawled out from the nest and yawned in a stray beam of sunlight. It nipped at the tail of its black sibling, who turned and swatted back at it playfully.

“What if they fall?” Sam whispered, worry tingeing his voice. “It’s so high up.”

“It’s possible,” Cego said. “Though they’re born up here in the canopy, so they’re used to balancing. Plus, their mother is looking out for them.”

Another large cat with a sleek brown coat made its appearance known, leaping onto the branch with the kittens. The mother warily glanced over at Sam and Cego, though she’d grown used to their presence by now.

They’d been watching the ferrcats in the ironwood canopy for a month now, since the mother had first grown fat and given birth to the litter. Only two kittens had survived, and Cego and Sam had taken every chance available to escape to the grove to observe them.

The black kitten made a daring pounce at the other, tossing it backward on the branch. Amazingly, the tumbling grey ball of fur maintained its balance and even slid into a counter stance.

“Black is always picking on grey,” Sam noted. “He’s getting bigger, faster.”

“Yes, but grey has been growing too,” Cego whispered back. “He’s learning and keeping up better over the past week.”

Through Cego and Sam’s arduous training schedule, always fighting for something, it was peaceful to watch others fight for once. Even if it was two kittens.

“I hope they grow up fast,” Sam whispered. “Maybe they can get out of this tree then.”

“But this is their home,” Cego said. “Don’t you think they’d want to stay?”

“No,” Sam responded confidently. “I think as soon as they’re big enough, they should leave. They need to get out of here.”

Cego could feel the warmth of his brother beside him on the branch. He could smell the sweat tingeing the boy’s freckled skin.

“If they do leave, I hope they go together,” Cego said.